The barbershop can fill up in an instant, but during the slow times, A.D. Eversole Jr. sits as his grandson shines up boots and shoes surrounded by roughly 500 framed photographs hanging on the walls.

"I've been here 55 years, and I like it just the way it is," said Eversole. His store is down the street from City Hall, in the shadow of the water tower that welcomes visitors to historic Richmond, a small city that predates the suburban county west of Houston in which it sits. Its walkable downtown of antiques stores and law offices is one of the big draws for residents.

"I came here in 1960, and it looks exactly the same. It looked good then and it looks good now," said Eversole. One of his longtime clients, Charles Slone, walks in and takes a seat. Slone, a retired lawyer, represented Fort Bend County, helping it shape what Richmond is today. He can't think of anything about the city he'd change, just his age, he joked.

"Just don't say (you'd change) your barber," Eversole replied.

Covering only 4.2 square miles, the city of Richmond sits between Rosenberg and Sugar Land. While Census estimates show Sugar Land has boomed, adding nearly 10,000 people in just four years, Richmond has gained only a few hundred during that same period, remaining somewhat insulated from the growth sweeping Fort Bend County. The city of roughly 12,000 is one of the smallest in the county and has lagged behind in other socioeconomic indicators, despite being the center of political power and much of the region's history. Now, the city is hoping to take advantage of the region's development with a recently approved comprehensive master plan and a new city logo and slogan - "A charming past. A soaring future." But don't expect it to look like the usual.

"We definitely want to do it a little bit unique," said Richmond City Manager Terri Vela, who helped produce the master plan that focuses on creating an entertainment and cultural destination. "We've always been unique to Fort Bend County. We still have a real barber shop in downtown. We want to retain that."

The city's history can be traced back to the Old 300, the group of Anglo-American families that colonized Texas under the watch of Stephen F. Austin, according to Chris Godbold, the chief curator of collections at the Fort Bend Museum in Richmond.

Some of the 300 families settled around a fort built on a bend in the river, dubbing the area Fort Bend. The city didn't get its current name until a duo of promoters decided to buy up land there in the 1830s and sell lots in the newly named Richmond. In 1837, the same year Richmond was incorporated, a newspaper advertisement promised a "great harvest" for those with "the sagacity to look into the natural advantages" of the city.

"The best commentary upon the health of Richmond," boasted the ad, "it never has given support to one physician." The city was the natural spot for the county seat, supported by ranchers and plantations dependent on slavery.

"It became a center both for politics and the commerce of the area," Godbold said. With access to the Gulf of Mexico, he said, "Richmond was kind of the town to go to."

Over time, though, the city lost its go-to status. Godbold said the shift began as early as the 1879 decision to send the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway through Rosenberg instead of Richmond.

"So Rosenberg becomes the big railroad hub for Fort Bend County," said Godbold. "I would point to that as at least one point where things start to shift."

Over the years, other dynamics kept Richmond small, even as it remained the seat of county government. For one, Mayor Evalyn Moore said, "Richmond used to be more or less isolated from the east side of the county because the prison system owned a whole lot of land on the east side."

Other large landholders also kept the city insulated. But when those landowners began selling, new developments like New Territory quickly came in; the master-planned community in Sugar Land's ETJ now covers 3,200 acres with 4,606 homes, according to its website.

"We knew that eyes were on us and there would be development, and sure enough, a number of the large landowners are currently looking at beautiful master-planned communities that are getting ready to be developed. So we're going to see a lot of growth," Moore said.

Then there was the 2013 vote to switch from general law to a home-rule charter form of local government. That change gave annexation powers to the city as well as access to more than 30 square miles of land in its extraterritorial jurisdiction. The plan is to eventually annex all of that property, but to do so over time and strategically, depending on the value of what's on or could go on that land.

The city's enhanced powers also allowed it to protect Richmond's many historic homes and buildings, including the old jail, the county courthouse and the rusty railroad bridge depicted in the city's new logo. It maintained a small-town feel, according to Mayor Moore, whose late husband Hilmar Moore served as mayor for 63 years and whose portrait is framed in Eversole's barbershop. Now equipped with the power to annex, a comprehensive master plan and a new branding campaign, city officials are hoping to guide Richmond's growth with a fervent nod to its history.

Interested in taking advantage of the regional growth, Moore said, "We're being very careful right now. We do want to try to maintain a rural, quiet nature to this area."

The 90-page master plan calls for mixed-used development, multi-modal mobility networks and updated zoning, among other goals. It also includes a list of historical properties and plans for the historic district, calling for the city to "shout" its history.

Eversole, the barber, isn't looking for much to change. The plan talks about nightlife, and he's OK with that as long as downtown visitors clean up the cans and bottles he so often finds Sunday mornings when he's headed for church. He and Slone misses some of the retail options, including a men's clothing store, that have been replaced by antiques stores over the years.

"Much of the shopping now goes to Sugar Land," Slone said.

And the traffic has increased as the population just outside the city has creeped up to its edge. "You could go anywhere in Richmond in five minutes," Slone said. "Now it takes a while to get on the highway to get out of town."

But if the plan achieves all it sets out to do, residents may not want to get out of town.

When Norma Cavazos first moved to the neighboring city of Rosenberg with her daughter in 2007, she asked herself in a panic what she had done. Both Rosenberg and Richmond, sometimes called the twin cities, were much smaller than Houston. But she launched her own business, Lola-Rose, selling homemade goats milk soaps and lotions and soy candles and rented a counter at the post office across from the barbershop in Richmond.

Business took off. The customers were kind, and more than once a seeming stranger would unravel how the two knew each other's family from way back, even though she didn't grow up here. It began to feel like home.

"I'm ecstatic at the prospect of what we're looking at," she said. "There's so much potential."

But there are some specific things she thinks the city should address, including drug use and a homeless population. The county still lacks many of the resources that Harris County has when it comes to those issues. She wants to see the city embrace both its history and its potential as a destination in the county.

"There are some people that want it to stay the way it was 50 years ago," she said. "That's held us back a little bit."

A few customers drop off mail while Cavazos finishes her lunch. Across the street, men wait their turn for a haircut in the barbershop. A few blocks away, a train makes its way across the old bridge, a reminder of the city's past and, now, perhaps its future.